THE BROTHER OF JESUS: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family, by Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III. HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. (Call no.: BS243.3 .J3 S53). Shanks is editor of BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW (in SP Library). Witherington is professor of N.T. at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Many "Book Bites" have highlighted titles in our library authored in support of spiritual formation, rather than kindling fires of intellectual debate and controversy. THE BROTHER OF JESUS was not written to create controversy, but it has stirred the pot. It addresses the meaning of what many scholars consider to be the first archaeological link to Jesus and his family. It was known, of course, there would be disagreement over whether James, ascribed in Aramaic on the ancient ossuary as the "brother" of Jesus, was a full brother, half-brother or other kin, perhaps a cousin, because of the Roman Catholic commitment to the perpetual virginity of Mary.

The authors of THE BROTHER OF JESUS worked with some of the world's best scholars who supported their conclusions on the ossuary and the integrity of the archaeological find. One of them, Andre Lemaire, the Sorbonne, Paris, wrote the Foreword. The other side of the story is a declaration by an Israeli team that the inscription is a forgery. Shanks believes there is a lot of "archaeological politics here." (USA TODAY. June 19, 2003).

There are at least two sides to this story. Roman Catholic scholar, John Dominic Crossen, says of the inscription on the ossuary this is "the closest we have come archaeologically to Jesus." (Book jacket). Confidence in the value of the discovery should not be quickly abandoned. Harvard's paleographer Frank Cross has said: "If this is a forgery, the forger was a genius." (TIME, June 30, 2003). TIME also describes the archaeological affair as a "scientific detective story with extremely high religious stakes." (Jacket)